The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

It may not be sexy and it may not be fast, but the time has come to acknowledge the key role that the much maligned form of public transit will have in solving cities’ mobility woes, writes Will Doig.

March 5 - Salon.com

To mark the upcoming anniversary of International Women's Day, Sarah Morrison investigates the best and worst places around the world to be a woman.

March 5 - The Independent

Tanveer Ali sees Detroit, where the impending arrival of retail behemoths has been greeted with enthusiasm by a city in desperate need of jobs and retail outlets, as an interesting test case for theories about the economic value of big-box stores

March 5 - Good

Alex Ihnen writes about the fast moving proposal to convert 1-mile of the elevated I-70 highway separating downtown St. Louis from its historic riverfront.

March 5 - nextSTL.com

Pete Swabey tells the tale of the development of smart city technology by IBM and Cisco, which has now reached a point of maturation in which significant lessons, economic opportunities, and future applications can be discerned.

March 5 - Information Age

Nate Berg reports on the recent release of the "official" guide to tactical urbanism, <em>Tactical Urbanism 2: Short-Term Action, Long Term Change</em>, authored by Mike Lydon.

March 5 - The Atlantic Cities

Comprehensive planning is customary in a great many American cities these days, but it wasn't long ago that the concept was foreign to most planners. Attorney and scholar Charles M. Haar was one of the figures who revolutionized the field.

March 5 - California Planning & Development Report

NYT reporter Amy O'Leary observes Manhattan's ubiquitous construction while suffering through overcrowded sidewalks, stores, and subway trains, and wonders just how many more people the crowded borough can absorb.

March 5 - The New York Times - Real Estate

A distinguished panel of architectural critics gathered this past week at the Center for Architecture, in New York, to discuss “Architectural Criticism Today.” Julie V. Iovine presents some choice excerpts from the two-hour conversation.

March 4 - The Architect's Newspaper

With the consistent news about declining home values and stagnating sales, its easy to forget that, in effect, there are two housing markets in the U.S. - those for owners and those for renters. Guess which one is booming.

March 4 - Slate

Yes, the subject may seem a little dry at first, but have a look at the intersection modeling shown in Emily Badger's recent article to see what continuously flowing traffic looks like at an intersection. A brave new world indeed.

March 4 - The Atlantic Cities

After not partaking heavily in wind power, New York is advancing plans to generate wind power on several fronts, reports Mireya Navarro.

March 4 - The New York Times

The American Society of Landscape Architects examines the implications of squeezing teens out of the public sphere.

March 4 - THE DIRT

As the Highway Trust Fund goes bankrupt, the editors of <em>Bloomberg</em> suggest new ways to finance transportation infrastructure that integrates new technology, increasing public-private associations and loosening the funding framework itself.

March 3 - Bloomberg

Jeff Kightlinger of the Metropolitan Water District and Phil Isenberg of the Delta Stewardship Council illustrate the state of California's water delivery system today. As population grows and infrastructure ages, an onerous task lies ahead.

March 3 - The Planning Report

There's no doubt that the awarding of the Pritzker Prize this week to Chinese architect Wang Shu was based as much on its symbolism as for personal achievement. Jiayang Fan looks at what the announcement's reception in China has been.

March 3 - The New Yorker

Writing for <em>Urban Land</em>, Trisha Riggs looks at the country's top markets for real estate based on ULI's <em>Emerging Trends</em> Americas report.

March 3 - Urban Land

In an interview with the British inventor James Dyson, Ben Schiller discusses the future of engineering and design in America and the fallacies behind much "green" design.

March 3 - Fast Company

BLOG POST

<p> Returning to San Francisco from a trip to New York City, I ruminated on my first experience of staying in midtown in the city in which I was raised. The city is different, of course. Times Square has fulfilled its <em>Blade Runner</em> destiny, and blue Grecian “Greatest Coffee in the World” cups have been supplanted with those from Starbucks. What stayed with me, however, was a brief exchange with another attendee of the same conference for which I was in town. “Everything is so expensive” she lamented. “I see people with yogurts and sandwiches and other things that don’t seem to cost too much, but I don’t know where they get them.” “Oh, there’s plenty of stuff around here” I replied. “You just have to look.”  </p>

March 2 - Lisa Feldstein

Emily Badger has produced a thoroughly researched article on "The 20 Characters You'll Meet on Every Neighborhood Email List." We think you might recognize a few of these folks.

March 2 - The Atlantic Cities